Dylan Ratigan is mad as hell. Infuriated by government corruption and corporate communism, incensed by banksters shaking down taxpayers, and despairing of an ailing health care system, an age-old dependency on foreign oil, and a failing educational system, Ratigan sees an America that has allowed itself to be swindled and robbed. In this book, his first, he rips the lid off our deeply crooked system—and offers a way out.

Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economics Have Damaged America and the World

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When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.

The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality

Best-selling author Chris Mooney uses cutting-edge research to explain the psychology behind why today’s Republicans reject reality - it’s just part of who they are. From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy, and much more. Why won’t Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - and What We Can Do About It

Our founding fathers worked hard to ensure that a small group of wealthy people would never dominate this country. Thomas Jefferson believed that our very democracy depends upon our ability to play referee to the game of business, protecting labor and the public good. But over the last 25 years, we've witnessed an undeclared war against the middle class.

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class - made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding - has been growing in power for a generation.

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles. Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world’s wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail. In search of a solution, journalist Matt Taibbi discovered the Divide, the seam in American life where our two most troubling trends - growing wealth inequality and mass incarceration - come together, driven by a dramatic shift in American citizenship: Our basic rights are now determined by our wealth or poverty.

Too Big to Fail

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.

Who Stole the American Dream?

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The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America - and What We Can Do to Stop It

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The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy Unabridged: How the New World Order, Man-Made Diseases, and Zombie Banks Are Destroying America

The New World Order. Hitler referred to it in his diaries. President George H. W. Bush foretold of it in his speeches. Formed by a secretive global elite, the group seeking this new order has taken hold of the nation and perhaps the world. Its influence pervades every reach of American society, from the products we buy at the grocery store to the topics of evening news programs.

The Party's Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat

Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, spent years in the party's inner circle. In this no-holds-barred memoir, he shows why he switched sides and became a Democrat. After serving as a Republican governor - one who was on the short list for the vice presidency in 2008 - Charlie Crist made headlines when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate as an Independent. He was on the front page again when he endorsed President Obama in 2012 and spoke at the Democratic National Convention - and yet again when he officially joined the Democratic Party later that year.

Publisher's Summary

Dylan Ratigan is mad as hell. Infuriated by government corruption and corporate communism, incensed by banksters shaking down taxpayers, and despairing of an ailing health care system, an age-old dependency on foreign oil, and a failing educational system, Ratigan sees an America that has allowed itself to be swindled and robbed. In this book, his first, he rips the lid off our deeply crooked system—and offers a way out.

This country, now more than ever, needs passionate debate and smart policy, a brazen willingness to scrap what doesn’t work, and the entrepreneurial spirit to try what does. Ratigan has compiled brash and fresh solutions for building a new and better America, and with this book he has started the debate America deserves. With you, he wants to take back the country from the six vampires sucking this nation dry:

A political system in which lobbyists write legislation, lawmakers place “secret holds” to create more pork for their districts, and money drives the whole process

A banking system that uses capital for speculation and debt creation, rather than productive investment

A “master-slave” relationship with our Chinese bankers, making our corporations and politicians complicit in a system that rigs our currency and leaves us with permanent joblessness and massive trade deficits

A health care system that is among the priciest and least sustainable in the industrialized world

An educational system that prizes prestige but produces mediocrity

An addiction to foreign oil that has sapped us of our willingness to innovate, made us reliant on inefficient technologies, and left us supportive of corrupt governments

To combat these vampires and to isolate the systematic ways in which our once productive industries and our government have been breached, Ratigan does not offer a grab bag of flimsy suggestions or useless hot air. Instead he provides listeners with a set of values that together form the answer for how each of us can not only understand what has gone wrong—but join together to make it right.

Would you consider the audio edition of Greedy Bastards to be better than the print version?

Yes! I love being able to hear the actual author of the book narrate it! It makes it so much easier because I just don't have as much time to actually read the book in the time frame I want. In some ways it is easier to grasp and retain to memory than actually reading the book. If you are one who learns by listening then I highly recommend the audio version of this book!

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The eye opening statements and explanations of how bankers have rigged and cheated the system at the taxpayers expense! It is wonderfully explained in lay mans terms so that anyone can grasp what happened during the financial collapse of 2008. It also offers solutions to the ongoing problem that has yet to be halted by the banks and wall street.

What does Dylan Ratigan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His narrative is engaging and he brings as much passion in his narration as he does when you see him on TV explaining things and or talking with a guest on his show!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me angry that we still have yet to arrest, indict and convict the Gangsters of the banks who cheated and stole from people that lead to the financial collapse in 2008. Nothing has been done to date and they are still practicing the same old policies and strategies and shennanigans to make fast money off the taxpayers and poor dumb asses buying their bad loans through pension investments. They have unlimited capital through our government! Some one needs to put an end to this and as Dylan Ratigan says in his book put the Vici code back into the system and bring innovation back. We have killed innovation in this country through unscrupulous and greedy practices via these banks and wall street brokers. We should all demand justice and this has been swept under the rug and made to appear like it isn't as bad as it is by printing more money through the fed!

Any additional comments?

If we don't implement sound solutions now and cut off the big banks from unlimited capital through our government then we are going to end up with something much worse than the 2008 collapse. In addition we have allowed these banks to hold us hostage and create the rise in commodities such as gas/food to levels that are insane! Dylan and others give some very good solutions and I for one want to see some of these solutions implemented.

This well researched material explains beautifully the myriad problems leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown. I have read other books on the subject but this one brought it all together such that I had an "aha" experience. It appears that "socialism" is a dirty word in the U.S. but it seems to me that a little more social conscience on the part of corporations would do the country and the world a great deal of good. The meltdown has caused global suffering and Dylan Ratigan is to be commended for his attempt to show how the problems can be tackled and the U.S. returned to fiscal and moral health.

My husband asked me to download this book for him. He had never watched Dylan Ratigan's show on TV but heard him on another program and the book was discussed. My husband is very interested in the inner workings of the government, from when it was formed to present, so this was a good choice. He enjoyed the book tremendously, both the story and narration.

While I gave it 5 stars across the board for excellent topics and delivery, titles like this sometimes suffer from the time lag between when it was published, and when it was purchased and listened to.

Case in point: In the chapter on health care, Ratigan rants on and on about how great the VA Health System is at providing cost-effective health care to our veterans, and how it should be used as a model for care for everyone else in the US. Given what we now know about the corrupt and broken VA system....um, oops....

Now, there was no way Radigan (or for that matter, most of us) could know how broken and corrupt the VA really was/is at the time he published this work (2012). However, his discourse on it borders on comedy given what we now know. So...perhaps the title can be be utilized as entertainment for that chapter and realistic reporting and discourse for the rest.

Loved the clear explanations which, in some cases, demystified things I'd wondered about for years. Not so thrilled about the author's narration. But that's a small price to pay for such valuable content. I definitely recommend it.

Greedy Bastards is very informative and appears to have a lot research behind it. If you want know the truth this is the book for you.

What about Dylan Ratigan’s performance did you like?

I like Dylan's up front style holding the listeners interest with facts and commentary. He tells how the,

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

You learn something from each section of this book as an example the advantages of early childhood education and Warren Buffett's foundation research in the area. He point out how the field of education is being exploited by the,

Any additional comments?

This is a book that will reward the reader/listener with a better understanding of reality as it is today and the possibility to change the direction we are headed. Both problems and solutions are presented.

Maybe I already had a headache...but even if Ratigan's voice wasn't the cause, it surely hasn't helped. The material is great though, so maybe I'll finish listening later with a glass of wine...when the grate of his punching of syllables won't make my ears bleed.

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